25 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I

Monton Unitarian ChurchGrade II* listedBarton Bridge, Barton Aqueduct and Control TowerGrade II* listedLamb HotelGrade II listedCrown TheatreGrade II listedFormer Monton Memorial SchoolsGrade II listed+3See all photos

Photos from Wikimedia Commons and Geograph, copied to our own server, each credited to its photographer with its licence; names open the building’s page or its official list entry.

Historic England lists buildings in three grades: Grade I for buildings of exceptional interest (about 2.5% of all listed buildings), Grade II* for particularly important buildings of more than special interest (about 5.8%), and Grade II for buildings of special interest (about 91.7%). Listing protects the whole building, inside and out.

Every entry on the National Heritage List for England whose point lies inside the ONS 2022 built-up-area boundary. One list entry can cover a terrace or a group of buildings. Neighbourhood dots: the population-weighted centre of each Census 2021 output area, coloured by its neighbourhood’s (LSOA’s) share of homes built before 1919 (Valuation Office Agency, March 2025).

Historic England’s conservation areas layer, supplied by councils (incomplete in places, so a page fact, never graded). Hectares are the part of each area inside the built-up area.

The first 3 entries were listed in 1964, 1 of the 1 Grade I buildings among them. 9 came in 1987, in the national resurvey of the 1970s and 80s. Only 3 have been added in the last 15 years.

1 scheduled monument

Nationally important archaeological sites and monuments, protected by law; work on them needs consent from the Secretary of State, advised by Historic England.

Bridgewater Canal's Barton Aqueduct embankment and retaining walls

Two measures, each ranked against every UK town of 1,000 or more, with protected heritage counting twice as much as the age of homes. Protected heritage counts each listed building by its grade (Grade I three points, II* two, II one), each scheduled monument and battlefield two, and each registered park or garden by its grade; it is ranked both per 10,000 residents and as a total, so a village with one fine church doesn’t outrank a historic city. The second measure is the share of homes built before 1919, from the Valuation Office Agency’s council tax records. History is a character grade: it describes the town and isn’t part of the overall grade.

18% of homes are Victorian or older, against 16% across England and Wales. The busiest period since was the 1930s, which added 11% of today’s homes.

Valuation Office Agency, council tax stock of properties by build period, 31 March 2025, for the neighbourhoods (LSOAs) that make up the town, split by where their residents live. Homes with no recorded build period (97 here) are left out; 1939–44 is not a period in the data.

William Booth

Robert Ainsworth

Cecil William Buckley

Joseph Wolstenholme

Joseph Malone

Vernon Armitage

Frederick Cole

Matthew Mullineux

W.A.B. Goodall

Leal Douglas

Harold Brighouse

Humphrey Yates

Frank Handford

Gustav Alexander

Sydney Chapman

John Dunn

James Abbott

Nellie Hall

Frederick Powell

John Moores

13501500165018001950

Sydney Chapman1888–1970 · British mathematician and geophysicist (1888–1970)

GA

Gustav Alexander1886–1929 · British lacrosse player

Joseph Wolstenholme1829–1891 · British mathematician (1829–1891)

JA

James Abbott1892–1952 · Football player (1892-1952)

John Moores1896–1993 · English businessman and philanthropist (1896–1993)

RA

Robert Ainsworth1660–1743 · English lexicographer and author

WB

William Booth1388–1464 · Archbishop of York

FC

Frederick Cole1852–1941 · Cricketer (1852-1941)

Everyone born in Eccles → Birthplaces from Wikidata; portraits from Wikimedia Commons.

Old houses are part of Eccles’s character: 27% of its homes were built before 1919, against 15% in the typical UK town. All told, the list holds 25 listed buildings, 1 of them Grade I, including Church of St Mary the Virgin. Its older streets lie in 3 conservation areas, the first designated in 1976. Sydney Chapman (1888), Gustav Alexander (1886) and Joseph Wolstenholme (1829) are among the 24 people born here before 1900. Beyond that, it has one Grade I building, about typical for a town its size (the middle one has 1); per resident it sits near the middle of UK towns; and it also has a scheduled monument.